Walks Into a Bar
by kingeditor
Summary: Bars, taverns, inns, etc. are all places where everyone can enjoy convenient, wholesome social interaction. And I mean EVERYONE.
1. Chapter 1- Hump Day

Disclaimer: As you can probably guess, I own none of these characters. Their respective rights belong to their respective owners… yada yada ya…

Here we go!

* * *

The bar is one of the oldest and most acceptable places of social gathering and social convenience.

This is true in Estarcion. This is true in the British Isles. This is true in Temerant. It is true in every countless continent and land from the Yankee frontier to Asgard.

This is fact in Japan. This is fact in Russia, both old and Soviet. This is fact in the Feldwar States. It is fact in every nation from Andor to Vintas.

This is certain in New York. This is certain in Iest. This is certain in Illian. It is certain in every city, town, and municipality from Palnu to Tokyo.

And it was true, fact, and certain in the drinking establishment–which was by vague local terminology, more of a "tavern" than a "bar"– in which our story begins.

–––––––

The wheel of time turned on our tavern's lone customer, who stood at 5 hands high, and almost 6 when he had his helmet. And sitting down, that figure was much shorter.

Most of his features were difficult to make out in the room's poor lighting, but he was covered in gray fur. The fur directly under his long, wide snout was covered in shadow, which in the dim building was hardly apparent. The only clothing he wore was a black vest and an array of medallions painted with the colors of a merchant's guild stretched across his torso.

There was also his short sword and sheath, which was clothing of a sort…

His now unadorned head held two large ears, below which were a pair of huge, connected eyes, and below those were, on the lateral sides of his face, the two connected openings of a jawless mouth.

He was, in short…

"Hey barkeep!" he shouted. "Cerebus hasn't had his mug refilled since the Trolloc Wars!"

Cerebus the Aardvark. Uncut, uncensored, and third-person.

"Oy'm coomin'. Oy'm coomin'." reassured the bartender, shuffling across the creaky floorboards.

The bartender's thick, black bangs entirely covered his eyes and forehead, so it was anyone's guess as to how he actually maintained any of the peripheral vision needed to bartend, let alone see straight in front of him. They went along well with his conspicuously formal tuxedo suit, though.

Set somehow, he did his job rather competently, and had a reasonable excuse for his uncharacteristic delay of service.

"Sawee. Oy joost had t' ooze t' crappuh." he said, retrieving Cerebus' mug. The dissatisfied customer cursed under his breath the pains of green bartenders.

"Anoother ayyle?"

"Aye." said Cerebus flatly. Upon a moment's consideration, he adjusted his request. "Actually… have you got any scotch?"

"Lemee cheyk here…" The bartender methodically examined the barrels. The findings corresponded with a resurfaced memory. "Yeeep… we joost gawt anoother sheepment 'dis mornin'."

"Perfect. Fill Cerebus mug still it spills."

Complying with the instructions, the bartender filled the mug with sin until the foam spilled off the edges. Were it any other customer, the young Richard George would be sure to serve the drink as soon as the foam began to rise, shielding a low quantity of booze from prying and paying eyes.

But the glint of the sword reflecting off of the aardvark's blade (which, yes, he was capable of seeing through his thick bangs), stayed his hand, literally and figuratively, as he waited for the foam to condense and to continue distilling.

The honest work done, he presented the conception to his sole clientele, who, without a word of thanks, began to down the beverage. After only a few seconds, it was gone, and it was a few seconds later until a single copper coin was dropped onto the counter, perhaps as an afterthought.

"More." said Cerebus.

"Coomin' ryyye up…" replied the bartender, almost merrily.

–––––––

The notice from the fire department on the tavern wall indicated that the building had a maximum occupancy of 150. This was considered fairly reasonable by all parties involved, and was rather generously altered following the establishment's hosting of the fire department weekend drinking party.

It was currently 147 occupants away from maximum capacity.

One was the sole customer. One was the novice bartender. And the other…

Seated by himself without a table against the wall at the far side of the room, his body seemed almost more coated in shadow than the rest of the poorly-lit bar. Anything beyond his black sailor's cap perched above a cracked-lip, all-knowing smile of either content or despair was impossible to distinguish.

Despite the best efforts of Cerebus, coupled with his considerable lessons and tutoring from experience, he often couldn't help but have a sense of curiosity. It usually got him into trouble. In fact, it _always_ got him into trouble, even when it yielded seemingly beneficial fruit.

But coming upon him again, he yielded with a breathless sigh.

"Who the hell is the guy in the back?" whispered Cerebus to the bartender, gesturing to the loner.

"Oy 'eem?" the bartender scratched his head. "He oozally cooms by fuh a drink. …oar two… or thray… or a lotta 'dem really. Bud t'day…" He gave a breath-filled sigh. "Oy joost doyn't know why, bud 'e's joost… siddin' dey'er."

"Well, Cerebus doesn't care to know why. Cerebus just wants to drink himself into some much needed peace and quiet." With a determined grunt, Cerebus resumed his embrace of alcohol.

At the far side of the room, the man's all-knowing-smile-of-either-content-or-despair creased just a little more outward, as if it were trying to comment on the aardvark's good taste in scotch.

–––––––

Richard George scanned the bar mournfully, his bang-shrouded head rested atop an elbow on the counter. There were usually more customers, but something was drawing the usual clientele away. An event? A special occasion?

He scratched his bangs quizzically. The Royal Palnu Festival of Petunias was not until spring, and so was the competing Hyrule Holiday of Hydrangeas. So what could it be that was staying the usual crowd of boozers?

The door creaked open to draw the count to maximum occupancy from 147 to 146.

A tall, old man with a very wide-brimmed hat and a long, thick staff walked across the floorboards, the staff acting as third leg to offset them. Their creaking, coupled with the swinging of the door, jolted the bartender awake.

Swinging his head in the direction of the visitor, he couldn't identify him as any of the regulars. Rubbing his eyes–or at least, the bangs in front of them– he was still no more able to discern the identity of the stranger.

The stranger did not care. He was simply happy that it was his day.

While the bartender was spellbound, the stranger took a seat, only 3 away from the obstinately uninterested Cerebus. He made a show of taking in the place, his hat curving along with the tilt of his head as his gaze made a slow sweep of the walls. Abruptly, they stopped on the other old man sitting alone in the shadow.

Quickly, the newcomer swerved back to the bar and placed his order.

To the bartender, the words could have been geese quacking, for all the difference it would have made to his comprehension in that instant of half-awareness.

"Oy uh… beg yer pardon… but uh… wajah say?" asked Richard.

The bartender allowed himself a study of the man's face. It was very old indeed, with wrinkled lines

"If the old memory recalls, I said 'Two meads. One for me, and one for that fellow over there.' " He said, without any trace of patronization. At the end of the brief recitation, he leaned on the back of his chair and pointed to the sailor-capped senior in the back, whose mystic grin had transformed into a frown of discontent.

"Oh. Righ' righ'. One momen'…" Hustling to the barrels, Richard drew two mugs of mead, then hurried back to the customer.

Cerebus grit his twin pairs of teeth and snorted. Cerebus was not interested. Cerebus was not interested. Cerebus was not interested…

It was only until he presented the mugs of mead for the man's retrieval did he recall one would be served to the man at the back wall.

"Way a'minud… oy wudden buy dat goy a dwink if oy wah you." protested the bartender. " 'e has reah particular tastes in hid alkeyhol…"

"I'm sure he'll accommodate my choice. Now, if you'll excuse us, him and I have some urgent discussion to partake in."

Leaving his staff to rest on the counter's edge, the man strode over towards his intended drinking companion, who made not the slightest sign to acknowledge his coming. Richard, meanwhile, had yet to realize that he had not been paid for the ale.

Still determined not to arouse his curiosity to any degree, Cerebus quickly placed another order with the bartender.

"Another mead-er… _scotch_."

"Coomin' righ' oop." replied the bartender agreeably, as he went to fetch the next beverage.

The man with the wide-brimmed hat set the mugs on a nearby table, then drew in a chair nearby. Collecting the mugs, he presented a mug to the man in the sailor cap, speaking his name softly and clearly.

"Bacchus." he said.

That man's frown turned into something that was unrecognizable as either a smile or a frown. But he did say his first words of the day.

"And what is it that you wished to be called today?" asked Bacchus.

The man in the wide-brimmed hat chuckled.

"Well, it is _my_ day… so how about… Wednesday."

* * *

So... a few words on how this is going to work.

Basically, this story exists in a universe in which any and all characters that I choose to drop in exist simultaneously, with no much-overused "multiverse" to facilitate the crossover. So the histories and continuities of said fictional universes are, in their initial states, intertwined with one another, as well as the real world. And then the characters from said universes interact with each other at this bar.

What this means for _you_ , the reader, is that I am open for suggestions as to who to drop in! So let me know in the comments or reviews as to who you'd like to see as a barfly!


	2. Chapter 2- Real Gods

Here I'm going to start a recap for every character and their original franchise that gets introduced with each chapter. So from the first chapter:

1\. Cerebus (The long-running independent comic book _Cerebus_ by Dave Sim)

2\. Richard George (Also from _Cerebus_ , as a parody of the Beatles' George Harrison and Ringo Starr)

3\. Bacchus (The also long-running independent comic book _Bacchus_ by Eddie Campbell)

4\. Wednesday (The _American Gods_ novel by Neil Gaiman)

* * *

The traveler's face was gaunt and travel-worn. His skin was dry and tanned, with even the bulge of his unusually large nose carved harsher and more arrow-like against his face. It might be weeks, or even months before it regained it's moist, fat sheen. Such was the price of long travel through the Dry Dry Desert.

Sweat could be the price of both desert heat and long work or travel, and at this moment it was the latter, the Southern climate being considerably less sweltering. So combined with a cool breeze, the traveler found the sweat a rather pleasant experience, so much unlike that lukewarm, sticky sweat that had characterized his body for the past 2 weeks.

It was only as a conclusive gesture of sorts, and not for any sweat-relieving purposes, that he took his prized red cap and wiped it across his brow. Stitched onto the quaint headwear was his first initial, a letter "M," and its removal revealed a nest of thick, short brown hair with a double-pronged sprout growing on the back– a pleasant, childish peculiarity in an otherwise adult body.

The rest of his face held a pair of large (although not by any means interconnected) blue eyes, and what might have been the most handsome, well-groomed mustache in the extent of the then-known world.

And below this singularly recognizable face was a pair of even more recognizable blue overalls. Not just typical denim blue, but a sort of eye-catching indigo blue, over a bright red undershirt. Tied around his waist was a leather belt complete with a substantial amount of holding devices for seemingly everything except a cup (the ingenious "cup holder" would not be invented until at least after 1300 NE). A long, powerful sledgehammer, a heavy wrench, a large leather pouch, and a stethoscope were its contents other than that instrument displayed most prominently on the belt: a sturdy, reliable plunger.

With white workman's gloves, the traveler rolled up his sleeves and put them at his sides, taking a deep, contented breath at the sight of the establishment he hoped would ease his weariness at least a trifle.

The bar was a short, long building of gray stone with a roof made of both thatched straw and elongated planks of timber. It struck the traveller as thoroughly medieval–that is to say, of the construction technology and style characteristic of the era in which he was living– but in an odd but placable way comforting. Having gone all-too-used to the bizarre architecture of the kingdom far north that he was… "escaping" from, it was nice to see another building that better resembled the places he was used to in his native home.

For whatever reason, he scanned the roof over many, many times. It was as if he were expecting it to be made of fungi, or some other such absurd notion.

The roof must have passed his inspection, because it wasn't much longer until he he smiled and strode towards the front door with it's "Open" sign. Which was another comfortably familiar set piece.

But something caught his eye.

A turtle. Sluggishly crawling, under duress of its heavy shell, across the hewn dirt between the traveler and the watering hole's front door.

The traveler froze in his tracks. His fingers began to twitch.

The turtle paid him no heed, it's long neck keeping its head level to the path ahead, perhaps determined to avoid the eye contact of superstitious, brightly-dressed foreigners.

The sweat on the traveler's brow intensified. His fingers twitched even more, inching themselves with the turtle's speed, and then a little more besides, to the large leather pouch on his belt. His legs began to wobble as well. Ever so slightly, his tight brown shoes rose above the dirt.

The turtle continued.

The traveler's fingers jolted backwards to the pouch, until only an inch away, ceasing mid-motion, and making a slow, jerky course to the sledgehammer.

The turtle had just reached the front of the door.

The traveler's fingers had almost just reached the sledgehammer, but had then precipitously changed their course back to the pouch.

The turtle was half-way across the door.

Sweat glistened from the traveler's brow as he remained half-paralyzed, half-ecstatic in indecision. His eyeballs swerved from turtle to belt from belt to turtle from turtle to belt…

The turtle had just passed the door's threshold, and was nearly out of the traveler's way.

Like a man possessed, the traveler suddenly grabbed hold of both the sledgehammer and the pouch– his physical strength and dexterity such that, without muscle definition under his sleeves, he could hold the sledgehammer competently in only one hand– and leaped a step back. His body hunched over into what could only be described as a fighting stance, as he stared down his "opponent."

Then he blinked. Slowly at first, and then rapidly.

The turtle was now well past his frontal vision.

The traveler's grip relaxed immensely on both the implements he had withdrawn from the belt, and he let out an enormous sigh of relief. Putting the hammer and the bag back on his belt, he once again wiped his brow with his cap. This time _also_ as a concluding gesture.

His gloved hand found its way to the door handle, and making the required pull, he entered the bar.

Although the traveler had not noticed, the turtle had at one point raised its head in apprehension at the blundering buffoon.

 _Why the Koopas want to imitate these people, I have not the slightest idea._ mused the reptilian.

–––––––

Cerebus was relying on the intoxicating effect of the alcohol to dull his sense of hearing, his interest in the conversation he was utterly failing not to eavesdrop on requiring such an effort of disinterest.

His combined aardvarkian and barbarian constitution was such that it took a very, _very_ great quantity of alcohol to inebriate himself, so he tried to accomplish the same effect by drinking what comparatively little alcohol he had very quickly.

"Ale. Ale. Ale-er… _stout_." The barrage of orders, the rapid rise of the wooden mug off of the counter, the steady chug of beverage down his throat, and the quick press of the copper coin on the table over and over again were contributing each on their own to a repeating chorus of tavern activity. A chorus that reminded the bartender with some melancholy as he went to fetch the requested stout, that it was this volume of sound that was normally characteristic of several customers, not merely one.

"With some grenadine." added Cerebus hastily. Shrugging, the bartender complied, distilling the red bar syrup into the drink. It was then that he remembered that regardless of how well the bar did on any individual day, he still got paid by the owner. This thought soon returned him to a cheerful disposition.

While the speech of Bacchus and Wednesday began to slur and tilt against Cerebus' tall ears, like the rocking of a riverboat ferry as it hits strong currents, it was mostly comprehendible, and Cerebus' unwilling eavesdropping continued.

"What brings you to this fuckin' backwater?" said Bacchus.

Wednesday smiled. "Well, I might ask 'what brings one such as yourself so obviously far from any wine, women, and song,' " he gestured widely to the almost empty tavern. "But that might stretch the boundaries of propriety."

Bacchus' tight lips curved into what might have been either a thin smile of annoyance or humor.

"And what's gotten the classic old god talkin' like such a prude? Been hangin' around those city folk?" said Bacchus.

"I'm afraid that I find myself altogether too civil when in casual attire." replied Wednesday.

"Oh, I'm sure the barkeep wouldn't mind if you brought in one of your wolves just to fill up the air." Bacchus put a hand to his chin. "What was the name of the big one that bit my hand last time we met? 'Fickle'…'Freckle'…"

Wednesday half-chuckled, half-grunted.

From his perspective, the mostly-silhouetted figure of Bacchus could be seen much clearer. Its sides were lined with a series of long, unhealthy-looking cracks, stretching from his eyes to his ears to his mouth. Whether they were scars, wrinkles, or some disturbing fusion of both could only be guessed. The thin lips that they were beside were the exact same color as wine stains, and had tall, steep walls of skin above and below them, complete with their own light creases.

Meanwhile, from Bacchus' perspective, Wednesday's glass eye wasn't too difficult to make out, mainly because of how large and luminous both his eyes were. The reflection of light off of his good eye was like the flickers of campfire light off of a dark cave wall. Even the slightest movement sent the lights dancing hypnotically.

" _Freki_." replied Wednesday, snapping Bacchus out of his eyeball-enraptured trance. "It troubles me that you were only two syllables off. Why Bacchus, if I didn't know any better, I'd say that you haven't been drinking your usual hogsheads of wine."

Bacchus rolled his comparatively bland (if alcohol-dulled) eyes. He made a forlorn glance towards a small, circular wooden pedestal at the other end of the bar.

Wednesday, perhaps from training, and certainly from personal knowledge of the man he was talking to, understood the glance's significance immediately.

"Is there a _girl_ here?" asked Wednesday, his good eye glimmering just a little more so than usual. Suddenly, Bacchus' reason for staying in such an unremarkable bar became all too clear.

"A _nymph_ more like." said Bacchus, using the term the same way others would use "angel" or "goddess." "The tavern dancer. If you haven't seen her yet–and it's obvious that you have not– then I can only hope that your death isn't entirely joyless."

Wednesday wanted to laugh at the joke, and maybe even challenge the assertion (although that would be unwise, as there were few better judges of beauty than the man he was talking with), but the 5-letter word in Bacchus' reply put him on edge.

Uneasily, he slumped in his seat, then sighed.

–––––––

"Oy shed… 'Dijja hear about th' wintah awp north?"

The words of the heavily-banged young bartender had to be repeated several times to Cerebus before they sounded like anything other than churned mush.

Cerebus' mug had been filled and refilled an uncountable number of times, and between his mystified eavesdropping on the strangers' conversation and the dull pounding of the ale behind his eardrums, it took him a few moments to process the question, even after hearing it.

Richard George sighed as Cerebus shook and adjusted his head with both hands. When he spoke, his voice came out in a sick, intoxicated wobble.

"Yeah… Cerebu-" he hiccuped. "-heard about the winter up-" he hiccuped again. He had once been told that hiccups were the drunkard's sneezes. "-north."

He took a deep breath. Or rather attempted to take a deep breath, as it was interrupted by more hiccuping. Yet a little of his hard, irritable gravel returned to his throat as he spoke again.

"Serves 'em right for leaving the old gods for that pussy 'Light' of theirs. Down here, we got _real gods_." The gravel in his throat turned to mush towards at end of his sentence as he hiccuped once more.

The barkeep shrugged with practiced neutrality, and was about to continue his task of wiping off Cerebus' mug when the door opened with a pronounced creak.

Stepping inside was the overalled traveler. He looked around the place, and was disappointed greatly by its emptiness, as it did not go well with the line he had been practicing the exclamation of for some time.

Nonetheless, he still said it.

"It's-a-me, Mario!"


	3. Chapter 3- Gay Attire

**((Author's Note: Sorry for the delay! I was sick for a while, and then swamped with makeup work. Hopefully that doesn't become a common occurrence in the future...**

 **Anyway, enjoy!))**

Chapter 1:

1\. Cerebus (The long-running independent comic book _Cerebus_ by Dave Sim)

2\. Richard George (Also from _Cerebus_ , as a parody of the Beatles' George Harrison and Ringo Starr)

3\. Bacchus (The also long-running independent comic book _Bacchus_ by Eddie Campbell)

4\. Wednesday (The _American Gods_ novel by Neil Gaiman)

Chapter 2:

5\. Mario (If you don't know who this guy is from, then there is precious little I can do for you)

* * *

The sudden exclamation by the overalled entrant was met by crickets.

Not literally, of course, as crickets were not a normal part of the establishment's clientele, but figuratively, in the sense that no one said anything.

Even if it illicit no verbal response, heads were turned on the necks of the few patrons in the bar. Wednesday and Bacchus looked up to give Mario funny glances, then tried to resume their conversation. Richard the barkeep blinked and squinted under his all-encompassing bangs, then tried to resume wiping off a mug nonchalantly. And finally, Cerebus shot a drunken, icy glance at the door, and then resumed finishing off his drink.

Mario looked around the bar with a mixture of embarrassment and regret. The embarrassment was from having said what was in the Mushroom Kingdom that he had traveled from (and also in his bar-of-choice back in his true home) a normally well-received introductory exclamation. In return for having said it, he was used to receiving cries of enthusiasm and friendly chuckles, and quite often of late in the towns up north, requests for autographs.

The regret was from his choice of bar. While he wouldn't have expected a tavern to be filled to very much capacity in the morning, a crowd of… (he counted the figures quickly in his head) … _4_ , including the bartender, was not an encouraging sight.

Nervously, he coughed into his white-gloved hand.

A thousand prayers were answered the moment the bartender broke the awkward silence.

"Eh… oy wood 'ave assume'd it wad you. Oy mean…" he scratched his head. "Oydendidy thef issen too cawmen around teez parts."

Mario was totally unprepared for the accent, which he thought vaguely to be cockney. Or was it Scottish? Australian?

Pausing for a few moments to decipher his lingo– and also to reflect on how oddly _familiar_ the bartender looked, although he had certainly never met him before– Mario replied, unsurely.

"Uh… yeah, yeah, you're right…" he made a sheepish grin. A grin he quickly retracted.

His voice, the same voice that he had, of course, made his exclamation with, sounded almost as if it came from two different people. It was mostly constant from word to word, but consisted of both a deep, masculine undertone and a high, distinct overtone. And he had never heard an end in his middle school days to the constant cries of music teachers begging him to join female-packed choruses.

Silently, Mario weighed his options. He could walk any number of miles to the nearest town (the bar being in an unusually isolated, country location), and perhaps find a bar that, if not more hospitable to his opening gag, then at least more filled up and with warmer faces.

But then another thought hit him.

 _No matter where you go in this country… there ain't gonna be a place 'where everybody knows your name.'_ he reflected grimly.

With a breathless sigh, he made up his mind and walked towards the counter.

His first instinct was to sit next to the grey, pig-like fellow. He was unable to deduce his species, but in the saccharine-sweet cartoons that he had grown up on as a kid, animals that could walk on two legs were typically creatures overflowing with friendliness and mirth as warm as their thick fur.

But _this_ guy… An icy glare was one thing, and the fact that he was in a haven of casual inebriation another. It was the sword that did it in Mario's mind. And he knew that swords weren't something you used for chopping firewood or sizzling bacon.

So instead, he opted for a place a safe 2-no, 3 seats away from him.

Taking his seat, he said to the bartender, "Um… so what do you have here?"

—-

After the temporary distraction, Wednesday's thoughts were put more in focus. That focus being the urgent matters he had planned on discussing with his drinking companion.

Turning back to Bacchus, he took a sip from his mead. He put down the drink quickly after doing so, grimacing from the taste. He had always hated mead. Still, his good eye glittered as he resumed their conversation.

"You might have some idea as to what I am here to ask you…" began Wednesday, leaning forward in his seat. "But hear me-"

"No." said Bacchus flatly.

Wednesday's good eye blinked, the glitter all but departed from it.

"Are times really so gritty and merciless," said Wednesday with a long sigh. "That even the god of drink and revelry has turned into a sourpuss?"

Bacchus seemed for a moment almost to take Wednesday's words as an insult, the lines on his already wrinkled face tightening. Then, they normalized, and he spoke.

"They're not and I pray they never will be. You should see me when this place is actually crowded. Especially with that dancer…" He smiled faintly in reminiscence, before adopting a more serious tone. "I have a vague idea of what you want: me to cooperate with you and the other gods on some good works for the mortals ("Although given your idea of 'sacrifice' that rather astonishes me…" said Bacchus quickly under his breath). Fight the Dark One– the tartarus' this one's name again? Shai-Tan or Balthazar or-"

"The first one." Wednesday cut him off. "You know, up North, they say that saying his name gives you bad luck."

Bacchus gave Wednesday a funny look. A silence took seat at the table, and stayed for a long moment.

It was a silence named comedic timing.

"You know… I'd think that a _god_ of all people would know enough not to trust superstition."

At this joke, both of them burst into raucous laughter.

—-

"Oy y'know. Scawtch. Awle. Beer. Whiskey." said Richard the bartender, answering Mario's question. Under his bangs, the bartender's expression was fairly nondescript. "A royther noyce seleckchun, really."

Out of habit, Richard scanned the barrels of beverage lining the wall. Mentally, he recited the liquor stocks of the establishment, as well as the incoming shipments to be had.

 _30 gallons of Ale (next shipment– 1 month and a half). 20 gallons of Beer (next shipment– 5 weeks). 17 gallons of Mead (next shipment– 2 months and a week). 12 gallons of Scotch (next shipment- 3 weeks). 2 gallons of Methlegin…_

He was interrupted by the overalled customer's voice, and caught it just on the tail-end of its request.

"…have a beer, please." said Mario.

"Roytaway, roytaway." replied Richard. Fetching a mug, he proceeded to fill it with the vigor-inducing drink.

Meanwhile, Mario's eyes shifted nervously between the countertop and the gruff aardvark sitting only seats away from him. Should he attempt conversation? Was the aardvark in the mood it? Would he get beat up for it?

His eyes fell on the creature's shortsword. Pacifistic, happy-go-lucky forest critters seldom carried such cutlery, let alone openly display it.

 _Well… swords might be common around here. Especially if they have to deal with bandits or Trollocs or koopa-_ He forcefully derailed that train of thought, remembering his "encounter" with the thoroughly non-intimidating turtle outside.

Shaking his head to fully rid himself of the memory, he gathered up what was his– taking everything into consideration– fairy ample courage, and greeted the creature.

Cerebus at first pretended that the shaky "Hey…" hurled at him from the plumber's direction was nonexistent. Then, when it was followed by a slightly stronger "Hey.", he readily assumed that it was intended for someone else. And then finally, when the mustachioed man had the nerve to interrupt his bitter drunkenness with a solid "Hey!", Cerebus clenched his fists underneath the counter.

Reluctantly turning towards the man, Cerebus gave his reply.

"Whadda you want?" he said. A small, stray hiccup from his previous drinking session shoved its way into his speech.

Mario froze, uncertain how to respond. Then he gathered up a little more courage.

"Um… you go here often?" he asked, smiling nervously under his thick mustache.

Cerebus gave the man an indescribable expression. An uncomfortable silence followed the well-intended inquiry, during which Cerebus sized up the conversational intruder. He could make out an unexpected volume of muscle definition under the plumber's shoulders. But what he fixated more on was the bizarreness of his attire.

There was only one class of people Cerebus had known (or rather, heard of from unquestionably unreliable tongues) to wear such brightly colored garb.

"Are you a _faggot_ or something?" he said, almost matter-of-factly. His voice was now free of hiccuping, allowing hm to emphasize the uncouth vocabulary.

Mario blinked. Several times.

Suddenly, the bartender arrived with his drink.

"Here you aw." he said, depositing the filled mug on the countertop. "Wot kinda dough do ya carry?" he asked.

In that moment, Mario thought of the bartender's accent as resembling that of a New York mobster.

"Um… what do you mean by that, exactly?" he replied. And then in the following moment, as the bartender spoke, Mario discarded that assumption entirely, and decided he was more of a Crocodile Dundee caricature.

"Yer cawency." he said flatly. Whether there was judgement under those thick bangs was hard to tell. "Wot cash do they ooze where you's from?"

Now Mario couldn't decide whether Richard was Crocodile Dundee or Al Capone.

"Er… I have gold coins." realizing that that was hardly specific, he added, "From the Mushroom Kingdom."

Under those all-encompassing bangs, the bartender's eyes might have widened.

"Dat's real far." he commented casually. "With th' awxchange rate for doze… I'd say yer set back 2 coins for that drink."

Fishing into the large pouch attached to his belt, Mario paid the man accordingly.

From his place a few seats away, Cerebus eyed the glimmer of gold as it changed hands with keen interest. 2 _gold_ coins for a beer? Either the bartender was practicing acute highway robbery, or it was fool's gold that made those coins.

Unable to stifle his curiosity when it came to matters of money, Cerebus asked, "How can _gold_ coins be of such low value?" he asked. A measure of passionate disbelief entered his voice as he spoke.

"Oh uh…" Mario wondered how best to phrase the Mushroom Kingdom's minting process (or rather– lack of thereof) without astonishing the aardvark to the point of anger. "Well you see… we just… _find_ them."

" _Find_ them?" the aardvark gave him a funny look.

"Yeah. All over the place. And sometimes, there are these big floating blocks…" he pantomimed the shape of one with his arm. "With question marks on them. And when you hit the blocks, coins come out of them."

An awkward silence followed, perhaps even more awkward than the one that occurred when Mario first tried to engage Cerebus in conversation. Mario's eyes strayed to the bartender, hoping for confirmation of the astonishing economic factoid. Richard's expression was, as expected, difficult to read under the layer of black hair. Turning back to Cerebus, he found the grizzled drinker to be having a whole variety of expressions, ranging from shock to disbelief to what Mario unmistakably and uncomfortably recognized as _greed_.

It was an expression on the aardvark that sent chills down his spine. And not for the last time.

Fortunately, the bartender provided another factoid to lessen the shock.

"Yeah, dat's royt. An doze trade awgreemen's and inflashun an' whannaw keep th' rates o' awxchange fixed."

Cerebus looked down at the bar for a moment. "Oh." he said flatly. There was a note of disappointment in his voice that hung in the air for a little while, before his bladder capacity caught up to him. In his efforts to dull out the words of Bacchus and Wednesday, he had consumed a _lot_ of alcohol.

"Cerebus has to take a piss." he said gruffly. "This place got a bathroom?" Normally, he despised such rooms of indoor waste disposal, preferring to do his business outside as often as possible as an act of defiance to the perfumed city folk. But now he was merely eager to leave the plumber's company.

"Yeah. Righ' awcross th' room." answered the bartender cordially. As he polished off a mug with a white cloth, he pointed towards the door to the rest room.

Not bothering to so much as a grumble a quick "thanks," Cerebus got up from his seat and strode towards the restroom.

Suddenly, Richard remembered something.

"Way a minud! Way a minud!" he shouted to Cerebus.

Turning his head back with an icy glare, the only word that escaped Cerebus' double mouths was a cold "What?"

"Er… da bathroom, y'see…" The bartender rubbed the back of his head. "It's been having soom real issues. Th' plumbin', y'see…"

At the word "plumbing," even obscured by Richard's accent, Mario's eyes lit up. Abruptly, he shot up from his seat, tough, travel-worn shoes making a thud against the wooden floorboards.

"Did… did you say 'plumbing' ?!" asked Mario. Of course, he knew the answer to the question before he even asked it.

The bartender's lips curved a little under his bangs at the customer's sudden enthusiasm. Cerebus simply rolled his eyes.

"Uh… yeah." said the bartender. "Oy beleef so…"

Mario took a step forward.

"While, as look would have it, I happen to be a plumber!" he grinned widely, his mustache hairs seeming to glisten under his nose.

"Ah really naw…" said the bartender, uncertain how else to respond. His eyes were tempted to go back to scanning the liquor shelves, an altogether far more predictable task.

Mario was undeterred by his obvious lack of enthusiasm, and pressed on.

"I bet with all my tools," he gestured to the considerable variety on display on the belt around his torso. "…and experience, I could get the job done in a jiffy!" his smile only grew larger.

The bartender eyed him–behind his bangs, presumably– with uncertainty. This uncertainty was quickly wiped off his face when he remembered the typical fee charged for a plumbing house call. A fee that would likely be much reduced (perchance even _nonexistent_ ) from this overeager plumber.

Weighing his options, the bartender gave a friendly grin.

"Ya naw wot. Sure thing." he said, pointing to the bathroom. Clearing his throat, he added, "Unfortunately thaw, Oy'm 'fraid oy cawn't pay you for the jaws… liability issues an' all frawm a plawber withou' a local license…"

Mario's enthusiasm dimmed a little. Did he need a new license for where he was?

Before he could reply, the bartender chimed in, "Oy mean… yuz cud still give it ah go if ya really wannoo." he offered. "I won' need ta tell anyone 'bout yer lack of certificashun if you do a good 'nough job…"

Mario jumped on the offer. Literally, he jumped a rather impressive foot into the air. Gleaming, he gave the bartender an over-the-top thumbs up.

"Believe me, I'll make those pipes sing!" exclaimed Mario, the pitch of his voice leaning more towards the high side to counter his manly lowness.

"Well then, woy nawt get to it?" he gestured encouragingly to the source of distress.

"Alright!" said Mario as he dashed to the bathroom, only narrowly avoiding Cerebus as he got out of the way.

When he was safely out of both eye and ear range, Cerebus announced, "I'll just piss outside." And with that, he proceeded out the door.

—-

There was a stirring below the bar. A special stirring, and deep, deep below.

Not only past the countless layers of packed dirt, miscellaneous stones, and crawling worms, but running parallel, opposite, and in particular, _upside down_ to the reality of the bar's world, two men were climbing.

The cliff face they were climbing was almost perfectly steep, but the men were trained in climbing to such an extent that this present part of their jobs could scarcely be called a work hazard. Even the skin-chilling, nerve-numbing, pitch black for untold distance all around them made their climbing task still somewhat less hazardous than the day-to-day work of their shared occupation.

One of these men was dressed for formal occasions, in a black suit and tie that seemed thoroughly unsuited for the grueling work of scaling the nondescript cliff wall. Hidden under the folds of said suit were several firearms, whose names he could list with ease, along with a deadly knife. These weapons had earned him the title of "Bogeyman."

But his real name was John Wick. From New York.

The other man, who was the better climber of the two, and was now waiting somewhat impatiently for his companion to reach his own height, is difficult to describe in appearance. Slung across his back was a long steel katana, while placed onto his thigh was a silencer-equipped pistol. A black scarf and bandanna covered the lower and upper halves of his face, white bandages lined the back, and a pair of blood red sunglasses covered his eyes. Beneath all of this, however, he had a face as bland and featureless as a sand dune in a desert. People said he was mad, very mad, in that he was both not always sane and not always calm. They may have been right.

But his name was Hank J. Wimbleton. From Nevada.

Wick was not used to this much climbing, but his legendary stamina and determination held him up as he shined a flashlight in one hand up the cliff and held onto his suction cup with another.

"How much… longer… till we reach the warp pipe?" he asked in between hard breaths.

Hank looked down on his climbing companion with an unreadable expression, his own flashlight gripped in his free hand as well. Even without the concealing gear, his blank face would have been indecipherable.

"Soon." he replied flatly. Controlled breathing on his part from his greater experience in this one area allowed him to speak normally.

However, neither Hank nor John would underestimate for a moment each other's skill sets, which they both humbly assumed to be about equal. And both men were difficult to impress in the area of tactical finesse.

As John Wink blinked in the light of his flashlight, he found out that "Soon" meant "Sooner than he expected."

Their lights were illuminating a large structure of rusting, green-painted metal directly above them. Cautiously, they dragged their flashlights across its surface, finding it to be the circular, holed object that the directions inscribed on the stones had led them to.

"Going up, John?" It was Hank that spoke, startling John. A joke from Hank was a rarity, something which John found odd given the sheer absurdity of his life.

Smiling wearily, he replied, "Nah. Just following the guy above me."

As they climbed upwards into the pipe, John felt a prickling sensation all over his skin. Goosebumps dotted his flesh, and he experienced what he thought to be a mix of static electricity and chills.

And before he could even blink, as they entered the impossible blackness of the hole…

—-

The toilet that Mario had begun to observe began to rumble inexplicably. Stepping back, he tried to find the source of the shaking, his plumber training leading him to check the sides for spills, leaks, jutting out pipes-

With a momentous crash, the toilet popped off the floorboards, and the floorboards themselves popped out of the ground.

Leaping out of the way, the startled plumber inadvertently made way for the heaving, panting forms of two full-grown men as they burst out of the pipes below.

One of them, dressed in strangely formal attire, immediately looked up at him and asked, in a voice laced with heavy breathing, "Where…are… Odin… and… Bacchus?"


End file.
